Towards a Feminist Pedagogy for the Sociology of Women's Education in Aotearoa, New Zealand: A Life History Approach.

Middleton, Sue

This paper is concerned with the teaching of undergraduate university courses on "women and education" or "the sociology of women's education" in the 1990s to pre-service and practicing teachers, some of whom are fearful of, or even hostile to, feminism. The paper consists of four parts: the first part presents the feminist educational theories of a New Zealand sociologist of women's education within the political circumstances of New Zealand and elsewhere from the 1980s to 1990s; the second part positions pedagogical concerns within the international discourses of sociology of education and critical pedagogy, in particular, the politics of the student's and the teacher's "voice"; the third part takes up this issue by using personal texts as a means of demonstrating how, in a university classroom, feminist teachers and their students can move between personal experiences and sociological analysis; and the fourth part discusses biculturalism, an issue of educational and political concern in New Zealand in the 1990s. It is suggested that the bicultural feminist educational theories which are being developed within the New Zealand situation have a somewhat different emphasis from feminist concerns elsewhere in the western world. Contains 74 references. (GLR)